"Yeah," said Tyler. He sounded uncertain.
"If you can fly a spaceship," said Katie, "I'm pretty sure you could drive an ordinary school bus."
"I'm sure I could do it," said Tyler. "I've watched our school bus driver and I think I'd be a better driver than him. The only thing is, I don't think my legs will reach the pedals."
"So that means the person with the longest legs will have to drive it," said Greta.
They all turned to look at Shimlara, who was about a head taller than their school bus driver.They were all thinking about the time she had flown them in her helicopter to the Rainbow Palace to kidnap Princess Petronella. It had been a very scary flight.
"Maybe we should all wear crash helmets," said Sean.
Shimlara looked down at her untouched plate of breakfast and her face crumpled. They all stared as tears began to slip down her face.
Sean was horrified. "I was only joking!" Shimlara wasn't normally the sensitive type.
Shimlara took a deep, shaky breath. "It's not you," she said. "I just suddenly remembered that Mom tried to talk to me the other day about the War on Whimsy. She asked if I would like to come along to a meeting. I told her I would rather die and couldn't she talk about something interesting for once? Wasn't that the most horrible thing to say! And now she's been kidnapped and who knows if we'll be able to save her."
"That was a pretty horrible thing to say to your mother," agreed Greta, as if she'd never said anything unkind in her life. "You probably really hurt her feelings."
"Greta!" said Katie. "It's all right, Shimlara. I think mothers are pretty forgiving about things like that. I know my mother is."
As if Katie would ever say anything mean to her mother, thought Nicola. She said out loud, "And we are going to find your family, Shimlara. I guarantee it."
"That's actually pretty irresponsible of you to say, Nicola," said Greta. "I mean, nobody can guarantee that. We've got to go into a war zone and we don't have any idea where they are on the Planet of Whimsy. Be honest. This mission is probably doomed."
"Greta! " said everybody at the same time.
"What?" Greta looked around at the cranky expressions on everybody's faces.
Nicola sighed. It was true, she couldn't guarantee they would find the Gorgioskios, but wasn't it better to try and give Shimlara some hope?
She changed the subject. "Well, I guess we should see what clothes JJ-11 left for us to wear. Oh, and we'd better work out our roles."
"What do you mean, roles?" said Sean.
"Well, if we're pretending to be a news crew, then you know, one of us should be the camera operator, somebody else should look after sound. That sort of thing. Oh, and one of us should be the actual journalist who does the interviewing."
She tried to make the last part sound casual.
Sean grinned. "And I bet you want to be the reporter, hey, Nic?"
"Oh, well, not necessarily," said Nicola, although that was exactly the role she wanted. "Maybe it would be better if Shimlara was the journalist, so she could read people's minds."
"It's easier to read minds when you're not asking questions at the same time," said Shimlara, who seemed to have recovered from her tears. "I'll just be the crazy bus driver."
"I'll be the makeup artist," said Katie cheerfully.
"And I'll be the cameraman," said Tyler.
"I'll do sound," said Sean. "The guy wearing headphones always looks the coolest."
That left Greta and Nicola.
There was a pause. Nicola didn't look at Greta.
"I'll be the producer," announced Greta.
Yes!